(Breaking the kayfabe here a bit, but this was written before the passing of Hulk Hogan. It’s been left as is, so if you’re not in the mood for anything but positive Hulkster vibes, best skip this one. Also, was planning on having this up much later this month, but… well… anyhoo…)
I wish I could say that the banner had a typo… but it’s WCW circa 1999, so…
Apparently, I still have this on DVD-R… and this is a vintage recording too. One of the few PPVs that I recorded onto VHS and would later transfer to DVD-R once I got my own DVD Recorder. It’s a fun time to be had by all, I’m sure.
To be honest with you, I’m not quite sure why I felt compelled to pull this one out. I realize that I had just watched Road Wild 1999 and… maybe I needed to remind myself of how long this Hulkamania ’99 run was going to continue (spoiler: it lasts until Russo came into play), but I figured since I had a copy of this on-screen, I might as well give it a watch.
Note to self: please do not indulge these needless and oftentimes dangerous diversions for the sake of your own sanity.
Billy Kidman, Eddie Guerrero, and an unmasked Rey Mysterio (or as I called him once, a 12-year-old pretending to be Rey Mysterio) defeated Vampiro and the Insane Clown Posse in a six-man tag-team match when Kidman pinned one of the ICP with a Shooting Star Press… wait, didn’t I already watch this match already? Did we really need to see it again here? Man, no wonder Eddie was ready to hightail it out of WCW first chance he got. Yeah, so this wasn’t as good as the last one I saw. The only noteworthy thing is that Vampiro actually powerbombed Kidman, which is a rare thing considering that Kidman’s whole schtick is YOU CAN’T POWERBOMB KIDMAN and here’s Vampiro to kill that gimmick dead. Good job, Vamp.
Cruiserweight Champion Lenny Lane (with Lodi, both of whom were doing a pseudo-gay thing that ultimately went nowhere because Turner Standards And Practices… well, let’s not go farther than we need to, shall we?) defeated Kaz Hayashi to retain the title in a ho-hum match. There’s a bit of shenanigans here and there, but other than that… meh.
The First Family (Brian Knobbs & Hugh Morrus) (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated The Revolution (“The Franchise” Shane Douglas & Dean Malenko) in a no-DQ tag match that started off with a fun brawl in the aisle before it eventually went to the ring and became… well, a thing that happened. Again, the Revolution is a group of younger… well, okay, let’s go with “underutilized workhorses” fighting the main event establishment and they’re just getting buried by the latest iteration of Jimmy Hart’s first family stable, which is about as main event as the Kiss Demon would be when THAT poor bastard started doing wrestling matches.
(Note that when I say “Kiss Demon” in this context, I am not speaking of Kiss frontman Gene Simmons who dressed up as a character called the Demon, but I’m speaking of Dale Toreborg, a wrestler who is dressed up like the Demon and is nowhere near as interesting. In hindsight, WCW not having the Demon vs. Hulk Hogan for the WCW World title is a missed opportunity that might’ve saved the company if they actually ran with that as a Starrcade main event. I am, of course, speaking in jest.)
WCW Television Champion Rick Steiner defeated Perry Saturn in a mess of a match to retain the title. It started off with hints of a decent wrestling match in there before things went south.
And then we have… oh…
Oh my…
We’ve got Berlyn…
For those who don’t know, Berlyn is Alex Wright with a new look and gimmick. He now has a black mohawk and light goatee, he speaks in German, he has an entourage, and he almost comes across as a Neo Nazi gimmick… so who better for a first opponent than the all-American every man himself, Hacksaw Jim Duggan?
The answer… well, anyone but Hacksaw Jim Duggan.
Look, I’ve no beef with Duggan. He seems like a swell dude and I hope he’s doing well… but why would anyone expect a man like Duggan to try and make a guy like Alex Wright with a goofy new gimmick look good? If you wanted to make Berlyn look like the next big threat or whatever the case may be, you give him someone he can easily dominate and come across as an actual threat. That someone can get a couple moves in, but at the end of the day, it’s all about getting Berlyn over as a threat.
Duggan ain’t doing none of that shit. He’s going to stick to his routine, he’s not going to sell for any of Berlyn’s bullshit, he’s not going to treat this skinny little man with a silly haircut like any kind of a threat, and the end result is that your pet project that you’ve spent weeks building up as one of your next big stars ends up being a total wet fart. Before long, Berlyn would be forgotten about and WCW would be pushing the bodyguard – THE WALL, BRUTHA! – for a brief run against Hulk Hogan… in the year 2000. I mean, someone please explain to me why I’m supposed to give two flying figs about Berlyn after this elderly man made him out to be a complete fool.
Oh, Berlyn gets the win. He hits Duggan with a neckbreaker and that does ol’ Hacksaw… barely, the guy almost kicks out at three… but fuck me, who’s going to treat this guy as a threat after this?
Oh wait, out comes Buff Bagwell, who complains about his plane being late… because apparently, Bagwell was supposed to be Berlyn’s first opponent… I don’t see how much better that would have turned out, but again, anyone but Jim Duggan would have been a better first opponent for this new German superman dude that’s… well, not that super.
Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) defeated WCW Tag-Team Champions Barry and Kendall Windham to retain the titles in a tag match that could rival the dreaded 20-minute McSon-In-Law promo as a cure for insomnia. I fell asleep a couple times during this match. My dog walk into the room, looked up at the TV as the Windhams were doing some cowboy shit, and walked out. This dog who wasn’t alive when this show took place knew a stinker when she saw one. If that doesn’t tell you anything, then I don’t know what will.
Sid Vicious defeated U.S. Champion Chris Benoit to win the title in a ho-hum match that saw Benoit going after Sid’s knee for who knows how long, only for Sid to be like “Fuck that noise” and kill Benoit with the powerbomb for the win… eh, poor choice of words. The sad thing is that these guys would have a much better match months later and it would turn out to be Benoit’s last match, as he would later bolt over to WWF and have a better run there until… you know what? Let’s just STOP and move on, thanks.
Goldberg defeated Diamond Dallas Page in a fun little brawl if nothing else. Obviously, you had Page’s Jersey Triad cronies try to distract Goldberg while DDP got his licks in, but in the end, Goldberg got the win. Obviously a far cry from their Halloween Havoc ’98 classic, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy this one. Fuck off. This was fun. I’ll take it.
Sting defeated WCW World Champion Hulk Hogan with a Lex Luger-delivered baseball bat shot to win the title. The whole build behind this was Luger claiming that Hogan was a backstabber who stabbed his friends in the back and Hogan was claiming innocence. In the end, Sting was the one who was in cahoots with Luger and “turned” on Hogan. The problem is that when Sting hit Hogan with the bat, people actually cheered because nobody was going to cheer HULK HOGAN over the man who had been synonymous with WCW since he first debuted in the company in 198x. It’s like every time you have a heel turn on Hulk Hogan in an effort to build sympathy for Hogan, but because the heel is so on point with his reasoning and because Hogan comes across as the most unsympathetic person on screen, it’s hard to root against the heel when he’s making sense.
Never mind all the run-ins and all the bullshit- the whole idea behind this match was to turn Sting heel and give him more of an edge. Except nobody bought Sting as a heel. It’d be a good long while before ANYONE could pull off a successful Sting heel turn and even that is kind of pushing it. And then you had Bret Hart who was kinda, sorta there. He had come back from a long hiatus after the passing of his brother Owen and is just sorta there. Who knows what the plan was for that guy before Russo came along and rewrote the whole script? Hell, who knows how any of this would have played out had there not been a change in creative management? Do I really want to know?
After some deep thought, I can say safely that I would not.
Final thoughts on the show?
I have none.
Except…
Yip.
dtm666 